4. Beneath The Howling Stars

Midwinter wrongs the rites of Spring
Her spinal chill rakes the earth
Whilst pensive souls at zero sing
Woebetidings of rebirth
Under cold stares of Mars maligned
Near-suicides cross their hearts
And unborns writhe in tepid brine
For something wicked this way starts

Beneath the howling stars

Elizabeth, paragon of vice
Watches the sun set pyres alight
As Bane and Tyranny, Her Dobermans sleep
Like spellbound paramours at Her feet

A chatter of bells without
Raise hellhounds, teeth on edge
From sleighs hastened through snow lit red
Guests espied from the garret ledge

Great gloomy mirror tell Her face
She will outblind them all
That heavenly bodies would fall from grace
To possess such a lustrous pall

For beauty is always Cruel...
For beauty is always...

(Let destiny in chains commence...
Damnation under Gods seeking recompense
Enslaving to the whims of this mistress)

As the dance ensued
Elizabeth's mood
Tempered by the craft of a vitreous moon
In slick black iciness it grew
To consume
The wench Her tower tombed
Tending to Her costume
Bore the brunt of the storm
When the needle askewed
She has Her dogs maul the bitch's wrists through
Restored to jaded bliss
This evisceratrix
Descended to the ball
With painted blood upon Her lips
Passing like a comet so white
As to eclipse
The waltz wound down, transfixed

Devoid of all breath in the air
Even Death paled to compare
To the taint of Her splendour
So rare and engendered
'Pon the awed throng gathered
There...

Beneath the howling stars

She danced so macabre
Men entranced divined from Her gait
That this angel stepped from a pedestal
Had won remission from fate
By alighting to darker spheres
Delighting in held sway
For She was not unlike the Goddess
To whom the wolves bayed

"Whilst envy glanced daggers
From court maidens, arboured
Who whispered in sects
Of suspicions abroad
That Elizabeth bewitched
See how even now the whore casts
Her spells upon the Black Count
Whom Her reddened lips hold fast"

Tongue unto tongue
Swept on tides without care
For the harpies who rallied
Their maledict glares
A halo of ravens tousled Her hair
Chandeliers a tiara
For passions ensnared

"Phantasies sexed
When their eyes, moonstruck met
Their friction wore a way
Through the sea of foreplay
Lovers at first bite
She an Eve tempted to lay
Gasping at rafters
Flesh pressed in ballet"

But caprice, honours leashed
She absconded the feast
To prowl wonderland
Beasts in hand from the Keep
Of Feudal dilemma
Well mantled in furs
Through cullis to watch
Dogstars howl at the earth

On this violent night
Unholy night
Winds lashed their limbs together
As the ether vent its wintry spite

She wished His kiss on Her frozen landscapes
To excite the bleak advance
From castle bowers
Wherein small hours
The Devil never came by chance
A lone charm tied to Her inner thigh
Sent lusts nova as hooves trod
Cobbled streets where lowlives fleet
Were flung to a wayward god

Midwinter wrongs the rites of Spring
Her spinal chill rakes the earth
Whilst pensive souls at zero sing
Woebetidings of rebirth
Under cold stares of Mars maligned
Near-suicides cross their hearts
And unborns writhe in tepid brine
For something wicked this way starts

Beneath the howling stars

Pounding upon the pauper ridge
Earshot of a hunched beldame
Elizabeth teased, would He dare to please
Such elderly loins enflamed?
To this He feigned a grim disdain
Playing to Her slayful eye
But the hag replied...

"This girl that chides
Will soon be as plagued with age as I"

Her consort laughed a plume of icy breath
For Elizabeth's grace could raise
A flag of truce in burning heaven
Or the dead from early graves
Yet still She seethed
This proud Snow Queen
Embittered with the cursed retort
And because He sought Her loves onslaught
He gutted the crone for sport

Soon in full moon fever they were wed
Lycanthropic in the conjugal bed
Littered with aphrodisiacs
To tease dynastic union
And beget them further maniacs

Elizabeth
Free reigned, now a Countess
Outwielded and outwore
Her title like a favoured dress
Whilst Her errant Lord
Whose seasons savoured war
Stormed black to fell the infidel
Her embers, tempered, roared.

6. Desire In Violent Overture

Nights came tralling ghost concertos
Heartstrings a score of skeletal reaper bows
Playing torture chamber music allegretto
Conducting over throes trashed to crescendo

Skinless the dark shall scream
Hoarse Her symphonies

Deathmashed as the moon
That had lifted Her dreams
And frowned on the winding steps down
To where the vulgar strayed,
Taunting sick Her tender prey
She glided in Her bridal gown

How sleep the pure
Desire in Violent Overture

An emanation of phantom madness
The Countess beheld in shroud
By girls bereft of future vows
Soon to wed in white the frosted ground
Burning like a brand on the countenance of god
A yearning took Her hand to His Seraphim, bound

Deep red hissed the cat whips
On the whim of ill-will
Whilst She entranced, nonchalant, abliss
Flayed further songs of overkill

How weep the pure
Desire in Violent overture

In a crescent-whime cellar of crushed roses
Pooled blood and broken dolls
A torchlit shadow theatre souled
With the echoed cries of lives She stole

Killing time
She struck the hours dead
In Her control
Thus menopaused
Her clock of hacked out cunts
Began to toll

"Thirteen chimes of ancient strain
I conjure forth with dirge
That fills the void with timbred pain
To fulfil my sexual urge"

Frights came wailing from the Darkside
Haunting lipless mouths a fugue of arcane diatribes
Velvet, their voices coffined Her in slumber
Bespattered and appeased
As pregnant skies outside bore thunder

How sleep the pure
Desire in violent overture

As when high winds
Attune whipped trees
Her savage nature pitched
Would once again conduct the pleas
Of those She loved to agonies

As if it were
The first time every night
That She carved Her seal
In the flesh of life.

7. The Twisted Nails Of Faith

"Mirror, mirror on the wall
Shouldn't not grave pleasures be my all?
For if I shall see thy Will be done
Grant Me the Witchcraft of thy tongue"
[Quoted words above are from Hammer Film's "Countess Dracula" (1970). The singer is Imgrid Pitt, the actress who played the role of Elizabeth in that film.]

Three moondials froze in the shadow of six
As another soul passed to the grasping Styx
Clutching their trinket crucifix
Bats blew from eaves in a dissonant surge
Omens of corruption from within the church
A fetid, dank oasis still clung to fool rebirth

Alone as a stone cold altar
The castle and its keep
Like faerytale dominion rose
A widow to the snow peaks
Wherein reclined the Countess
Limbs purring from the kill
Bathed in virgin white and like the night
Alive and young and unfulfilled

Was it the cry of a wolf
That broke the silver thread of enchanted thoughts?
Of Her life as a mere reflection
(As the moon's in narrow windows caught)
That opened like dark eyelids on
The sigh of the woods that the wind fell upon

Like a Siren weaving song
From the lilt of choirs choking
Where the vengeful dead
Belong...

To the Sorceress and Her charnel arts
She swept from ebon towers at the hour of Mars
'Neath a star-inwoven sky latticed by scars
To unbind knotted reins that kept in canter, despair
Shod on melancholy, fleet to sanctuary there,
In netherglades tethered where onyx idols stared

Was it the Kiss of the mist
That peopled the air with the prowess of absinthe?
Lost souls begging resurrection
From Gods upon their forest plinths
Whose epitaphs read of re-ascending to win
Remission from despair through a holocaust of sin

In a tongue hilted in invective rectums
Over signs and seals the sorceress prayed
To Death, to rend the slender veil
That Ancient Ones might rise again

As shadows swelled
The Countess fell
To masturbating with Her dagger
As the Witch gabbled spells
Cumming heavy roses all the way to Hell
As sudden thunder's grue harangue
Announced two pincered worlds

Exuding bane, something came
With the stench of necrophiled graves
To these clandestines
Who shrank from glimpsing horror
That the growls of mating houls inclined...

Resplendent
In pendants
(Natal trophies torn from bellies of desanctified nuns)
A demons, bewinged, bedight
In scum, prowled their circle seeking entry to run
An arctic tongue upon Her vulva
Where rubies smeared to alabaster thighs
Glittered like a contract in the purse of a whore
Receiving sole communion from the body of christ

"If blood is what thou carves, foul fiend
I will yield this witch to thee
If thou wouldst draw a veil for Me
O'er lengthening scars of age and grief"

As the Demon slavered foetid vows
And bore His prey away
In talons itching to perpetrate
The nausea of eternal rape
The Sorceress screaming in His grasp
Spat a final curse to stain
The Countess with the promise
That Her lord at war would be cruelly slain

And She would rot.
Alone
Insane.
On the twisted nails of faith.

8. Bathory Aria

[I. Benighted Like Usher]

Snuffed tapers sighed
As Death left impressing
His crest of cold tears on the Countess

Benighted like ill-fated Usher
The House of Bathory shrouded
'Neath griefs dark facade

If only I could have wept
In mourning by Her side
I would have clasped Her so tight
Like storm-beached Aphrodite
Drowned on Kytherean tides

And Kissed Her
For from Her alone
My lips would have known
Enigmas of shadowy vistas

Where pleasures took flesh
And pain, remorseless
Came freezing the breath
Of raucous life hushed unto whispers

Benighted.

Inhaling the pale waning moonlight that crept
Through the crypt of Her Lord who so lucidly slept

Benighted.

Exhaling the wail of black widowhood's toll
Waxing eternal night entered Her soul

[II. A Murder of Ravens in Fugue]

Now haranguing grey skies
With revenge upon life
Gnathic and Sapphic
Needs begged gendercide

Delusions of Grandier denounced the revolt
Of descrying cursed glass, disenchanted in vaults
Encircled by glyphs midst Her sin-sistered cult

With hangman's abandon She plied spiritworlds
To Archangels in bondage
From light to night hurled
Cast down to the earth where torment would unfurl.......

But soon,
Her tarot proved
Hybrid rumours spread like tumours
Would accrue
And blight Her stars
However scarred
To better bitter truths
Of cold bloodbaths

As bodies rose
In rigid droves
To haunt Her from their
Shallow burials imposed
When wolves exhumed
Their carthen wombs
Where heavy frosts had laboured long
To bare their wounds

To the depths of Her soul they pursued
Wielding their poison they flew
Like a murder of ravens in fugue

And knowing their raptures
Would shatter Her dreams
She clawed blackened books for damnation's reprieve
Baneful cawed canons on amassed enemies

So Hallow's Eve
As She received
Like Bellona to the ball
Those enemies
Fell-sisters heaved
Her torturies
Cross stained flagstones
To Her carriage reined to flee

But She knew She must brave the night through
Though fear crept a deathshead o'er the moon
Like a murder of ravens in Fugue

For each masked, jewelled gaze held dread purpose
Horror froze painted eyes to cold stares
And even Her dance
In the vast mirrors cast
Looked the ill of Her future
If fate feasted there....

[III. Eyes That Witnessed Madness]

In an age crucified by the nails of faith
When rank scarecrows of christ blighted lands
An aloof Countess born an obsidian wraith
Dared the abyss knowing well She was damned
Her life whispered grief like a funeral march
Twisted and yearning, obsessed an entranced
With those succumbing to cruelty
Crushed 'neath the gait of Her dance
A whirlwind of fire that swept through the briers
Of sweet rose Her thickets of black thorn had grasped...

She demanded the Heavens and forever to glean
The elixir of Youth from the pure
Whilst Her lesbian fantasies
Reamed to extremes
O'er decades unleashed
Came for blood's silken cure

But Her reign ended swiftly
For Dark Gods dreamt too deep
To heed Her pleas

When Her gaolers were assailed
With condemnations from a priest
Who'd stammered rites
In the dead of night
For maidens staining winding sheets

And She postured proud
When Her crimes were trowelled
And jezebelled to peasant lips
Though She smelt the fires
That licked limbs higher
To the tortured cunts of accomplices

So ends this twisted fable's worth
And though spared the pyre's bite
By dint of nobled bloodlined birth
Her sins (crimes) garnered Her no respite

Forever severed from the thrill of coming night
Where slow Death alone could grant Her flight

"The Spirits have all but fled judgement
I rot, alone, insane,
Where the forest whispers puce laments for me
From amidst the pine and wreathed wolfsbane
Beyond these walls, wherein condemned
To the gloom of an austere tomb
I pace with feral madness sent
Through the pale beams of a guiltless moon
Who, bereft of necrologies, thus
Commands creation over the earth
Whilst I resign my lips to death
A slow cold kiss that chides rebirth
Though one last wish is bequathed by fate
My beauty shalt wilt, unseen
Save for twin black eyes that shalt come to take
My soul to peace or Hell for company"
[Quoted words above are from Hammer Film's "Countess Dracula" (1970). The singer is Imgrid Pitt, the actress who played the role of Elizabeth in that film.]

My soul to Hell for company

10. Lustmord And Wargasm (The Lick Of Carnivorous Winds)

An Archangel in bondage
Bediademed, souled
With a murder of ravens
But no less Astarte to behold
Abandoned by Heaven
To the dead, dark and past
Cast Her dispersions
On life's brittle glass

And though Her eyes still held fire
As stonewalls caged the beast
'Gainst the lassitudes of Death
She fought but fell to greet
And midst lies in collusion
She was martyred to teach
That "Divinity and Lust
Are forever forbidden to meet"

But I swore that they would
Before the veil could part our embrace
Twixt Her cold, silent hips I kissed
And promised Christendom in flames

Gravid with madness
Like a feculent dirge
That obsesses the heart
I am covened by words

To avenge Her
Ebon splendour
And surrender
My soul to the dead to achieve
Prophecies of libidinous scourge
Horripilation braying o'er carious herds

Vexing nightmares
And their weak prayers
To a no one there
To hinder Her decree

To weed the world of their disease

As shadows unblind mine eyes to see
The meat that is their congregation

How they plead to the skies
But this is mere foreplay to war

Scar-riddled saffron eves bleed like the conjugal
Vestal daughters giving throat to the priest
A psychophant, the despoiler of faith
Now His skinless crucifixion feeds a winged diocese

For Her interred
I tore a battle banner from His hide
Splashed in red goetia
Hues of Hell and deicide
So came the night
Its obsidian light
Is a master whom disasters
Suck upon like concubines
And under black skirts
That whisper of delight
Darkseeds near fruition
Darked deeds to marry mine

"In Death's bed I have lain
Paying lip-service to shame
But for dreaming of thee I regain
A reason to seek life again"

Then we smite the divine
For our true nature is sin
To strip tender flesh from these swine
Like the lick of carnivorous winds

The breath of the storm that begins
By forcing its Herod tongue in
The womb of the holy virgin
To taste of immaculate sin

From temptation's peak we will see
The world unfurled at last
Now the wolves of time who stalk Mankind
Shall be as one in grim repast

Commemorating sickle moons
The pack are poised to reap
A scythe of white roses in bloom
Whose twisted thorns will keep
A crown upon a dead man
Daylights crucified in sleep
And lives that hide in scriptured lies
To the memories of a scream

And we shall dance amid the ruin
As Adam and Evil
Dizzy at the falling stars
That burn fiercer in throes of upheaval

If all must we damn for this moment
Then it shall be so
For our souls have crossed oceans of time
To clasp one another more tightly
Than Death could alone...

As Zyklon beats reign to make carrion crawl
The talons of lust rake a clarion call
To the lick of carnivorous winds

The lick of carnivorous winds

11. Lustmord And Wargasm (The Relicking Of Cadaverous Wounds)

[Bonus track]

An Archangel in bondage
Bediademed, souled
With a murder of ravens
But no less Astarte to behold
Abandoned by Heaven
To the dead, dark and past
Cast Her dispersions
On life's brittle glass

And though Her eyes still held fire
As stonewalls caged the beast
'Gainst the lassitudes of Death
She fought but fell to greet
And midst lies in collusion
She was martyred to teach
That "Divinity and Lust
Are forever forbidden to meet"

But I swore that they would
Before the veil could part our embrace
Twixt Her cold, silent hips I kissed
And promised Christendom in flames

Gravid with madness
Like a feculent dirge
That obsesses the heart
I am covened by words

To avenge Her
Ebon splendour
And surrender
My soul to the dead to achieve
Prophecies of libidinous scourge
Horripilation braying o'er carious herds

Vexing nightmares
And their weak prayers
To a no one there
To hinder Her decree

To weed the world of their disease

As shadows unblind mine eyes to see
The meat that is their congregation

How they plead to the skies
But this is mere foreplay to war

Scar-riddled saffron eves bleed like the conjugal
Vestal daughters giving throat to the priest
A psychophant, the despoiler of faith
Now His skinless crucifixion feeds a winged diocese

For Her interred
I tore a battle banner from His hide
Splashed in red goetia
Hues of Hell and deicide
So came the night
Its obsidian light
Is a master whom disasters
Suck upon like concubines
And under black skirts
That whisper of delight
Darkseeds near fruition
Darked deeds to marry mine

"In Death's bed I have lain
Paying lip-service to shame
But for dreaming of thee I regain
A reason to seek life again"

Then we smite the divine
For our true nature is sin
To strip tender flesh from these swine
Like the lick of carnivorous winds

The breath of the storm that begins
By forcing its Herod tongue in
The womb of the holy virgin
To taste of immaculate sin

From temptation's peak we will see
The world unfurled at last
Now the wolves of time who stalk Mankind
Shall be as one in grim repast

Commemorating sickle moons
The pack are poised to reap
A scythe of white roses in bloom
Whose twisted thorns will keep
A crown upon a dead man
Daylights crucified in sleep
And lives that hide in scriptured lies
To the memories of a scream

And we shall dance amid the ruin
As Adam and Evil
Dizzy at the falling stars
That burn fiercer in throes of upheaval

If all must we damn for this moment
Then it shall be so
For our souls have crossed oceans of time
To clasp one another more tightly
Than Death could alone........

As Zyklon beats reign to make carrion crawl
The talons of lust rake a clarion call
To the lick of carnivorous winds

The lick of carnivorous winds

12. Black Metal

[Bonus track]

[Cover from Venom's album "Black Metal" (1982)]

Black is the night, metal we fight
Power amps set to explode.
Energy screams, magic and dreams
Satan records the first note.
We chime the bell, chaos and hell
Metal for maniacs pure.
Faster than steel, fortune on wheels
Brain haemorrhage is the cure.

For BLACK METAL
Lay down your souls to the gods rock 'n roll

Freaking so wild, nobodys mild
Giving it all that you got.
Wild is so right, metal tonight
Faster than over the top.
Open the door, enter hell's core
Black is the code for tonight.
Atomic force, feel no remorse
Crank up the amps now its night

BLACK METAL

Lay down your souls to the gods rock 'n roll
Metal ten fold through the deadly black hole
Riding hell's stallions bareback and free
Taking our chances with raw energy

Come ride the night with us
Rock hard and fight
United my legions we stand
Freak hard and wild for us
Give up your soul
Live for the quest satan's band

Against the odds, black metal gods
Fight to achieve our goal
Casting a spell, leather and hell
Black metal gods rock 'n roll
Building up steam, nuclear screams
War-heads are ready to fight
Black leather hounds, faster than sound
Metal our purpose in life

BLACK METAL

Lay down your souls to the gods rock 'n roll

BLACK METAL

13. Hallowed Be Thy Name (Shallow Be Thy Grave)

[Bonus track]

I'm waiting in my cold cell when the bell begins to chime
Reflecting on my past life, and it doesn't have much time
'Cause at 5 o'clock they take me to The Gallow's Pole
The sands of time for me are running low

Motherfuckers!!

Running low!!

When the priest comes to read me the last rites
I take a look through the bars at the last sights
Of a world that has gone very wrong for me

Can it be that there's some sort of error?
Hard to stop the surmounting terror
Is it really the end not some crazy dream?

Somebody please tell me that I'm dreaming
It's not so easy to stop from screaming
But words escape me when I try to speak
Tears they flow but why am I crying?
After all I am not afraid of dying
Don't believe that there never is an end

As the guards march me out to the courtyard
Someone cries from a cell "God be with you"
If there's a God then why has he let me die?

As I walk all my life drifts before me
Though the end is near I'm not sorry
Catch my soul it's willing to fly away

Mark my words believe my soul lives on
Don't worry now that I have gone
I've gone beyond to see the truth

When you know that your time is close at hand
Maybe then you'll begin to understand
Life down there is just a strange illusion.

Oh, hallowed be thy name
Oh, hallowed be thy
Name

Hallowed be thy name
Hallowed be thy name
Hallowed be thy name
Hallowed be thy name
No

14. Sodomy And Lust

[Bonus track]

[From Sodom's album "Mortal Way Of Life" (1988)]

Behind the scene of destiny
I adore you in this song for me
Call me within your holy house to dwell
Let me raise for myself in spell
Voluptuously dancing daughters of the night sky
Sing the rapturous love song with high
Let your sweet scented juice run
Waste away under the lashes of my whip

Bath in sin / Sadistic Souls
Break their crust / Sodomy and Lust

Carnal desire runs through my veins
Whipping boys and scapegoats cry in pain
Psychopathic terror during their sleep
My power ask why, my power is weak
Spineless bundles of my excess
Expurse of innocence and helplessness
In the perfumes of my secret orison
Fresh blood of children drops down on me

Bath in sin / Sadistic Souls
Break their crust / Sodomy and Lust

Madness, crime, disgrace, ptomaine
Excrements, contempt, violence, kill

Ordeals of thousand deeds congealed in gloom
Strike hard and deep, to hell with 'em master
Mighty prophets stature shall surpass the stars
The passion is the smell of cremation
I spit on your crapulous creed, curse 'em!
Sucking you giveth delight and bright glory
Strive ever to be more joyous to the death
Don't fear any god will deny you for this

Bath in sin / Sadistic Souls
Break their crust / Sodomy and Lust

1. From The Cradle To Enslave

Two thousand fattened years like maniacs
Have despoiled our common grave
Now what necrophagous Second Coming backs
From the cradle to enslave?

Sickle constellations
Stud the belts that welt the sky
Whilst the bitter winter moon
Prowls the cloud, dead-eyed
Like shifting parent flesh
Under silk matricide...

Watchful as she was upon Eden
Where every rose arbour and orchard she swept
Hid the hissing of a serpent Libido
In an ancient tryst with catastrophe
Soon the be kept

Hear that hissing now on the breeze
As through the plundered groves of the carnal garden
A fresh horror blows but ten billion souls
Are blind to see the rotting wood for the trees

This is the theme to a better Armageddon
Nightchords rake the heavens
PAN DAEMON AEAON

And what use are prayers to that god?
As devils bay concensus for the space to piss
On your smouldering faith
And the mouldering face
Of this world long a paradise lost

This is the end of everything
Hear the growing chora that a new dawn shall bring

Danse macabre 'neath the tilt of the zodiac
Now brighter stars shall reflect on our fate
What sick nativities will be freed when those lights burn black?
The darkside of the mirror always threw our malice back...

I see the serpentine in your eyes
The nature of the beast as revelations arrive

Our screams shall trail to Angels
For those damned in flames repay
All sinners lose their lot on Judgement Day
We should have cut our looses as at Calvary
But our hearts like heavy crosses held the vain belief
Salvation, like a promised nation
Gleamed a claim away...

This is the end of everything you have ever known
Buried like vanquished reason
Death is season
Drive like the drifting snow
Peace, a fragile lover, left us fantasising war
On our knees or another f**ker's shore
Heiling new flesh
Read, then roared
To a crooked cross and a Holy Cause
What else be whipped to frenzy for?

This is the end of everything
Rear the tragedies
That the Seraphim shall sing

Old adversaries
Next to Eve
Now they're clawing back
I smell their cumming
As through webbed panes of meat
Led by hoary Death
They never left
Dreaming sodomies
To impress on human failure
When we've bled upon our knees

Tablatures of gravel law
Shall see Gehennah paved
When empires fall
And nightmares crawl
From the cradle to enslave....

This is the end of everything